Lindworm
by TwinEnigma
Summary: He destroys the Daleks because he must and is so named a monster by his twin. She quests across universes to find her prince and finds she is to wed a dragon instead. A fairy tale of a different sort, featuring Metacrisis Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler.
1. Once upon a time

_**Lindworm**_

_By TwinEnigma_

_Warnings: _Pete's World, Spoilers for Stolen Earth/Journey's End, Angst, parallels to fairy tales

_Characters: _Metacrisis Tenth Doctor (aka MetaTen, Handy, Ten Too, 10.5, 10.2), Rose Tyler

_Disclaimer:_ I write for fun, not profit and I'm not the BBC.

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**1.**

_Once upon a time, there was a beautiful queen. Her husband had left for war and she was very lonely and sad.  
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_One day, she came upon an old woman and told her of her troubles. The old woman was kind and told her she could help. That evening, she should go to the north corner of her garden and there she would find two white roses. She should eat them both, but remember to remove the petals._

_The queen went to the garden and found the roses. She was very careful to remove the petals on the first rose, but it tasted so good that she forgot to remove the petals of the second. Soon thereafter, she was pregnant and there was much rejoicing._

_When it came time for her delivery, she gave birth to a great and terrible lindworm..._

He is born in a burst of energy, sprung fully-formed from his severed hand. A part of him finds that very fascinating as a sort of mythological parallel to legends of Earth's Athena, but now is not the time because everything is burning and tick-tock-tick-tock, time running out, every second colliding like a chain reaction of sparks and fire. He breathes and the air is too hot. The TARDIS screams in the back of his mind, hurting and struggling to stay alive, and there is Donna, staring at him.

"You're _naked._"

Why so he is.

Everything is sparks and fire as he brings the TARDIS about and he is _alive_. But... oh, that's _disgusting._ One heart beats in his chest where there should be two, minor physiological differences here and there where the regeneration energy had jury-rigged the missing parts, and... And he knows every flavor of Pringle ever and ooh, she's in his memories, painted through them like a slash of ginger fury and he can see how she sees herself and it's just horrible because it's not true at all. She's brilliant, molto bene, _bellissimo_!

Donna tells him where the others, where the other him, all are: they are the prisoners of the Daleks. He doesn't waste time and immediately starts on a plan. It fails, but then there is Donna, who is suddenly flaring brighter than ever, a wild card, a twin sister that he's only just realized, and everything is _shiny_.

Dalek Caan's words singe and he turns back because there is truth in them, truth that he's forgotten. Somewhere along the line he'd forgotten that sometimes he _must_ stand up and do what is hard because sometimes there is no choice and the greater sin would be to let the cancer that is all things Dalek metastasize. He's still cooking, just like he was before, so he remembers these things he'd forgotten more keenly. A lot of him is still undecided, but he already knows that he's a no-second-chances kind of guy, a man who does what is right not because it is easy, but because he has to. The Daleks have had all their chances and wasted them all. He knows exactly what he has to do.

He does it.

And in doing so, he is deemed a viper.

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**AN:**

Continuing with the theme of fairy tales and springboarding off my one-shot, Broken Aesop, Lindworm is going to be sort of an odd one.

Genocide of the Daleks... not so bad really, considering what that army would have done to the rest of the universe.


	2. There was a cursed beast

_**Lindworm**_

_By TwinEnigma_

_Disclaimer: _I do this for fun, not profit. Obviously I am not the BBC.

_Warnings:_ Doctor angst

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**2.**_  
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_One day a letter arrived, bearing great news. The war had ended and the king would soon return home. When his horse arrived and the queen went to welcome him, the lindworm followed and greeted him, too, calling out, "Welcome, father!"_

_ "What!" the king said. "Am I your father?"_

_ "Yes, and if you are not, I will destroy you and the castle as well!"_

_ The king had no choice. He had to agree. They went into the castle and the queen confessed all that had happened. _

_ Some days later, there was a great celebration. All the important people in the kingdom had gathered to welcome the king and praise his victory. _

_ The lindworm came, too._

The Doctor watches his clone – no, copy – _no,_ that's not the right word either. An instantaneous biological metacrisis, that's what he's looking at. Best to call it what it is: _the_ Metacrisis, a singularly unique event in time and space. It's something _new_, something not quite Time Lord and not quite human either.

The thought chills him and not because the Metacrisis is part human, no. Humans are wonderful, amazing creatures that never cease to amaze him. Just when he thinks they're at their worst, they turn around and surprise him. He loves humans. Loves them and their unpredictability, their silly edible ball bearings, their chips and desperate will to survive and spread to the ends of time itself. Sometimes he pities them, sometimes he's mad at them, and sometimes he's so, so sad for them, for what he's _done_ to them, but he doesn't hate them: he hates _himself_.

And the Metacrisis is just that – _him_.

The man who committed genocide.

The destroyer of innocence.

A monster who doesn't tell them to fight, but they always do because they _want_ to. He _makes_ them want to because he's so clever and so kind and wonderful and all those other reasons they've told him over the centuries, when he's anything but.

He's an old, old man in a young body, a man who uses people like pawns and leaves a sea of corpses in his wake. He is death, destroyer of worlds and this man, this Metacrisis, is in his very nature the same. That much has already been proven.

All around him, the others celebrate and cheer as they tow the Earth home. There is such joy, such utter joy, and relief that the Daleks are gone, that everything's alright. The cost sits like bitter ash on his tongue and he watches the Metacrisis out of the corner of his eye as he talks to Rose, the doppleganger's lips breaking into a wide, easy grin.

Yes, the Doctor thinks sourly, the Metacrisis _is_ him.

And there is no one he hates more than himself.

"You made me," the Metacrisis accuses.

He really is a monster.

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**AN:**

I find it interesting how much the Doctor canonically loathes himself.

Interestingly, yes, MetaTenth is very briefly shown talking to Rose right before the camera pans to Mickey and Jackie.


	3. And he was to marry

_**Lindworm**_

**By TwinEnigma**

_Disclaimer: _I do this for fun, not profit. Obviously I am not the BBC.

_Warnings:_ Donna, brainmelt

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_ One day, the lindworm said, "I wish to be married at once! Find me a bride or I shall destroy you and the castle as well!"_

_The king had no choice and asked all the kingdoms if someone would marry his son. A beautiful princess replied and soon joined them. She was instructed that she would not look upon her husband until her wedding night. She was scarcely within the door and the lindworm ate her up in an instant._

_ Some time passed and soon it was the king's birthday._

_Again, the lindworm said, "I wish to be married at once! Find me a bride or I shall destroy you and the castle as well!"_

_Another princess was found but she too was eaten._

_On the queen's birthday, again the lindworm said, "I wish to be married! Find me a bride at once or I shall destroy you and the castle as well!"_

_ The king did not like it, but he had no choice. He sent the queen to every house in the land, but no girl would marry the lindworm._

_ The queen despaired. She had been to every house, save one. "Who should marry my son?" she said._

_ Now, a widow lived in the last house with her daughter. The queen went to her and said, "Won't you give your daughter's hand in marriage to my son?" _

_"No, I can't do that. I have but one daughter in all the world." But the queen insisted and the widow had to give in._

Donna Noble watches the Doctor and, well, the Doctor out of the corner of her eye. No, the _Doctors_ – her Doctor and _her_ Doctor, the one made from bits of her. Did that sort of make him her son or something? Oh _no,_ goodness no, she remembers being a mum (and a dad and a granddad, but those memories are a bit faded, like looking at an ancient photograph) and she is _definitely_ not Starfish Boy's mother. Really, she's too young – old, no, well... she's just _not._

She rubs her left temple, sighing as she digs out her mobile and dials home. She's getting a bit distracted by all this stuff in her head. Hopefully, it doesn't mean she'll turn into another great big alien gob like Skinny over there. Bad enough that there are two of them now!

Speaking of the two of them, the original streak of nothing is sneaking a decidedly moody look at the other one whenever he thought the other wasn't looking and vice versa. Really, it would be almost funny, if she didn't have the inexplicable feeling in her head that she should hate herself or, rather, the Doctor for _being_ the Doctor. Of course, she is not going to let that big outer space dumbo's excuse of a complex work its way in the door – she'd had enough of that, thank you, and, _really_, the gall of Starfish Boy lecturing her on self-loathing when he was such an expert! That utter hypocrite!

She assures her grandfather she is okay, all the while realizing that it is sort of silly to be calling him, because her – no, the _Doctor's_ next move would be to take everyone home. Oh dear, that is annoying.

Martha and Jack would go first, most likely, then Sarah Jane, and then they'd drop off Ricky, er, Mickey, Jackie and... Rose. Now _that_ is odd, remembering loving a girl she hadn't even met until Hen- no, no, that was _him_. She'd only met Rose very recently and thinks that Rose might stay. It'll be nice to have another girl to chat with.

It'll be Bad Wolf Bay again, she knows this. It's a natural weak spot where the two parallels converge. If the universes weren't sealing off very soon, she thinks she'd take the TARDIS back and see if something happened there – perhaps Fenric was involved...

She shakes her head to clear it. Really, even the Doctor's _brain_ had a fantastic gob. Always going a thousand places at once, how on earth did he stand it? Well, there was the training... and no, she's lost her train of thought again.

Right. _Right._ That just leaves Starfish Boy, who doesn't really fit in anywhere. Oh, to be sure, he _is_ the Doctor and that's the problem. She doesn't need the Doctor's brain to see that he's not keen on having another him moping about – although, that part of her that's him thinks that he's too dangerous to leave alone and maybe she-he should keep him with her-him, locked up, as she-he'd intended to do with the Master.

No, absolutely _not_, Donna decides. He is not a lunatic beyond redemption, no matter what he thinks.

But, Alien Boy's brain is right – one moping outer space dumbo was bad enough, but two is a recipe for _disaster_.

So, who to send Starfish Boy with?

She considers Martha Jones. It's true, Martha once was in love with the Doctor, but she _remembers_ how awkward he felt in remembering her confession, how he was still hurting from Rose, and how badly he'd felt when he realized he'd led her on with no intention of anything from her other than friendship. Even if Martha wasn't now engaged, Donna knows that path is closed to him.

Maybe Jack?

No, no, that would not do either, she thinks. Jack's a friend, yes, but then there's Torchwood. No matter how much Jack says he's changed it, made it better, it's still Torchwood and she shudders to think what they'd do with a Time Lord at their disposal.

Mickey's decision to leave startles her a little – it wasn't expected – but she forces herself to get back to what she was thinking about. It's important and it's getting harder to concentrate.

Perhaps Sarah Jane might have him. She cared and still does care for him. And yet, it's obvious that something about Sarah Jane's changed. The woman has something to fight for, a kid – he sounded like a teen or thereabouts – and her affection towards the Doctor seems to have paled with the passage of time. She doesn't seem like she needs the Doctor anymore – yes, she's found herself. The sonic lipstick was a brilliant idea – always brilliant that Sarah Jane...

Again, Donna shakes her head to clear it. That leaves just...

No, he _wouldn't._

He wouldn't _dare._

Dump Starfish Boy off in Pete's World without so much as a by your leave? Oh, she was going to have some words with him! And Jackie would slap his stupid skinny head right off his body!

The Doctor comes back inside and, for a moment, his eyes meet hers. They flick to Rose and suddenly she _knows_.

Oh that stupid, big, alien dumbo, she thinks as she feels her hearts – _heart_, she reminds herself – breaking all over again as he says the name of that awful bay.

"Don't you see what he's trying to give you?" she asks both of them.

Because she _does_ and it _hurts_.

Oh, Spaceman, why do you have to be so stupidly _noble_? Because that's who he is, who they _are_. The lonely god, the one who shoulders all that suffering and gives everything he wants so badly up just so that someone else gets their happy ending, and it's Starfish Boy who's lucked out, but he'll probably hate himself for being happy as much as Alien Boy hates himself for being miserable, the stupid spaceman. Rose will help when she figures out things; she's always been fantastic, fabulous, brilliant Rose and Starfish Boy needs her – loves her, never stopped loving her. Maybe they should go somewhere nice when this is all over, cheer him up – she needs it, too, with all this – what was the name...

Something's wrong.

The stars are dizzying, she can feel the universe spinning, expanding, all those worlds, it's _brilliant, brilliantbrilliant..._

It's _burning_.

Burning, baking, breaking, brain boiling, _binary, binary, binary..._

"I'm so sorry."

Blackness.

* * *

AN: It's hard to write a melting brain.

Symbolic consumption of the princesses in Sarah Jane and Martha.

Oh, Doctor and Doctor, you are driving poor Donna crazy with your angst levels and emotional masochism. Seriously, can you imagine the two of them on a TARDIS together? Someone would die.

And yeah, I do think he was always planning to leave Rose on Bad Wolf a second time. She's not the first companion he's made that decision for.


	4. A scared young maiden

_**Lindworm**_

**By TwinEnigma**

_Disclaimer: _I do this for fun, not profit. Obviously I am not the BBC.

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_When she learned of her fate, the daughter was sad and took a walk in the woods. There she met an old wise woman. The old woman asked why she was so sad._

_ "I have great reason to be sad, but nothing can be done," the girl told her._

_ The old woman insisted and so the girl told her of the terrible misfortune that had befallen her._

_ "If you listen to me, I can help you," said the old woman._

_ The girl soon quieted and agreed to listen._

_ Then, the old woman gave her advice._

Rose Tyler is in all appearances controlled. She moves with a sort of fluid grace and commanding purpose through her life, as she had done in Pete's World. It is something which followed her through the dimension cannon and into the fractured parallel of one Donna Noble, extra-ordinary temp from Chiswick. Inside, she is spiraling crazily on her axis as, first, she tries to stand on her own without the Doctor, then as she comes close to finding him once more, almost loses him in the same instant, and now has him.

_A him,_ she corrects herself, still bewildered by the whole concept.

Time itself seemed to stop when she saw him on that street for the first time in years, in the flesh, _alive_ and well, and then the whole universe seemed to shatter as the Dalek shot him because he _couldn't_ die, not after all she'd gone through to get there, and done to save him, to see him again.

The shock of it made her stupid and she can't believe she even managed to get anything coherent out at that point with the way her brain was just... God, she must have sounded completely mental to him or like some lovesick, obsessed little girl. But at the time, the adrenaline was still rushing and she'd gone through so many emotions in such a short time that it hadn't really all set in. She'd got such a case of whiplash that the horror of the Daleks threatening to destroy the universe didn't even register until well after the TARDIS disappeared that one last time and took the Doctor with it.

Except, she notes, not really.

She does not know what to do with him at first, this – what was it that he called it – _Metacrisis_ version, much less what to feel about him, so she says nothing.

When they leave, he follows them and she feels like it's the most tragic thing she's ever seen. He's like a ship cut from its moorings and his very presence is awkward, all elbows and knees and disturbingly intense. He tries to talk to her, but she instinctively avoids it and he gives up for a short time before trying again.

It does not help the situation that she cannot muster any words for him that are not politely distant or brief.

In part, she says nothing because she is angry at the Doctor and she is not sure it would be right to blame _this_ Doctor. Some petulant part of her had hoped that she could resume her travels with him and now sits scorned. Another part resents him because _this is just like him to do this _and she should have seen this coming, _especially_ after meeting Sarah Jane. Yet another part of her hates this Metacrisis version for sharing his face with the Doctor when he is _not_ him and giving her ample temptation to say something she will regret.

_He is me, same everything,_ the Doctor had said.

She presses her fingers to her lips gingerly. She can still feel the echo of his kiss on them. No one has ever kissed her like that.

The Doctor would never have kissed her – let alone with such passion -, but this one did. This one loves her and can _say_ it. He can stay with her for _her_ forever.

But...

He is more human than ever and it scares her silly, because the Doctor is _not human_. Oh, he pretends and he passes for an eccentric on the most part, but there is no mistaking the difference in the end. This version, on the other hand, lacks some of the _alienness_ that made him, well, _him._

The Doctor would never have settled. Never, not in a billion years. He was practically terrified of the life domestic. This one has settled and seems to, so far, be content in disassembling her mother's toaster and playing with Tony.

Her mouth gets away from her one day and they fight, a horrific row that leaves her scared out of her mind and weeping because she's _never_ seen him so furious, except at his enemies. In that moment, he is utterly alien and inhuman, every bit the Time Lord, and it's _terrifying._

In that moment, she knows he's _the Doctor._

He's gotten better at masquerading as human over the years and she... she has lost something of the faith in him that she had before, that much is now painfully clear. She had been chasing a memory of him, much as Sarah Jane had done, and could not see that as much as he loves her, he has in some ways moved on with his life, just as she has.

"How do I fix this?" she moans to her mother.

Her heart is still hopelessly tangled up. She hates him and loves him, wants to make him hurt like she does but can't do it again and the line between the two Doctors is now so hopelessly muddied that she cannot rightly say that one is the right one over the other.

"It's like, he's the Doctor, but not quite the same," she tries to explain, but the words get jumbled and lost as her emotions tie her up in knots. "But it's still him where it counts, yeah?"

Her mother just sighs and hugs her like she'd done when Rose was little. "Oh, Rose. Let me give you some advice..."

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**AN**: Is it just me or does it almost sound like Rose has a brain fart when she's talking to Ten in Journey's End? Because, seriously, she seemed awesome and together in Parallel!Donna's verse, but she hits that point and her dialogue makes her sound like she's got a case of stalker with a crush, instead of "all reality collapsing, if anyone can fix it, it's you! HALP, kthxplz."

Unless, of course, Timey Whimey is involved and the Rose that appears to Donna is a post-Journey's End Rose and ow my brain...

So yeah, attempted to capture the brain fart as adrenaline rush/mood whiplash/no time to process babble.

The horrific row reffered to I wrote before - it's called "Broken Aesop."


End file.
